The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1887-04-28
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIvINE's SUN
DAY SERMON
Subjects What is the Moral Effect
of Secret Socictics?"


subsequent periods of the world, there were
people too much disposed to tell all they knew.
II was blab, blab, blab; physicians revealing
The case OF their patients, lawyers exposing
the private affairs of their clients, neghbors
advertising the faults of tho next door resi-
dent, pretended friends betraying condolences
One-half OF the trouble OF every community
comes fromthe fact that so many people have
no capacity to keep their mouths shut
When hear something disparaging Of you
my first duty is not To tell you, But IL ! tell
you what somebody has said against you,
and then go out and tell everybody else what
told you, and they 20 out and tell Others
what told them that | told you, and we all
go out, some to hunt up tho originator Of the
story and others to hunt it down, we shall get
the whole community talking about what
you did do and what you did not do, and
there will be as many scalps taken as though
band of Modocs had swept upon helpless
village, We have two ears but only one
tongue, physiological suggestion that we
ought to hear u good deal more than We tell.
Let us join conspiracy that we will tell
each other all the good and nothing of the
i'll, and then there will not be such awful need
Of sermons on Solomon's words: Discover
not a secret to another
Solomon had very large domestic circle
In his earlier days he had very confused no.
tons about monogamy and polygamy, and
uls ilulIlluulllpus iSoOClititS Ill tuS HdbIliuO
NAL state kept him too well informed as to
what was going on in Jerusalem. They gath
cred up all the privacies of the city and
poured them into his ear, and his family he
came Sorosis, or female debating society OF
700, discussing day after day all the Difficult
ties between husbands and wives, between
employers and employees, between rulers and
subjects, until Solomon, in my text, deplores
volubility about affairs that do not belong to
us and extols the virtue OF secretveness.
By the power of secret divulged families.
churches, neighborhoods, nations fly apart
By the power of a secret kept great charities
socialities, reformatory movements and Chris
tian enterprises may be advanced Men are
gregarious- cattle in herds, fish in schools,
birds in hocks, men in social circles You
may by the discharge of a gun scatter
a flock Of quails, or by the plunge OF
the anchor send apart the denizens of tho
sea, but they will gather themselves together
again If you, by some new power, could
break the ASSOCIATIONS in which men now
stand, they would again adhere. God meant
it So He has gathered all the flowers and
shrubs into associations You may plant one
forgetrme- not or heart's-ease alone, away oil
upon the hillside, but it will soon hunt
up some other forget-me-not or hearts
ease Plants love company. You will find
them talking to each other in the dew. A
galaxy of stars is only u mutual life insur-
ance company. You sometimes see a man
with no out-branchings of sympathy His
ice-glazed, which the most ngile sailor
could never climb. Others have a Thousand
roots and Thousand branches. In
Vulnerable tendrils climb their hearts,
and blossom all the way up, and the fowls
of heaven sing in the branches In conse-
quence of this tendency we find men coming
together in tribes, in communities, in churches,
in SpfatieS Soma thav hor tn,
vate the arts, some to plan for the welfare OF
the State, some to discuss religious themes,
some to kindle their mirth some to advance
their craft So every active community is
divided into associations of artists, of
merchants, of bookbinders, of carpenters, Of
masons, of plasterers, of shipwrights, of
plumbers Do you cry out against it! Then
you cry out against u tendency divinely inn
planted Your TRADES would accomplish no
more than if you should preach to busy
ant-hill or bee hive long sermon against
secret societies.
Here we find the oft-discussed question
whether associations that do their work with
closed doors and admit their members by
pass words and greet each other with a
secret grip are right or wrong. ! answer
that it depends entirely on the nature of the
object for which they meet. Is it to pass
the hours in revelry, wassail, blasphemy
and obscene talk, or to plot trouble
to the State, or to debauch the in
nocent, then l SOW with an emphasi
that no man can lake: No But is
object the defence Of the rights of any elias
against oppression, the improvement of the
mind, the enlargement Of the heart, the ad-
vancement of art, the defense of the govern.
ment, the extirpation of crime or the kind
ling Of pure-hearted sociality then l say,
with just as much emphasis: Yes
There is no need that we who plan for the
conquest Of right over wrong should publish
to all the world our intentions The General
of an army never sends to the opposing
troops information of the coming attack.
Shall we who have enlisted in the cause of
God and humanity expose our plans to
the enemy! MOI we will in secret
plot the ruin. of all the enterprises
of Satan and his cohorts. When
they expect US by day, we will fall upon them
by night While they are strengthening
their left wing we will double up their right.
By plan of battle formed in secret conclave
we will come suddenly upon them crying
1.-The sword of the Lord and Of Gideon
Secresy of plot and execution are wrong
only when the object and ends are
nefarious. Every family is a secret
society," every business flrm and every
banking and insurance institution. Those
men who have no capacity to keep a
secret are unfit for positions of trust any
| vital need is culturing capacity to keep a
secret. Men talk too much, and women too.
| There is time to keep silence rs well rs q
| time to speak.
Although not belonging to any OF the great
| secret societies about which there has been
SO much violent discussion | have only words
! of praise for those associations which have for
their object the maintenance of right against
wrong, or the reclamation of inebriates, or
| like the score of mutual benefit societies
| called by different names, that pro
| vide temporary relief for widows and
orphans, and for men incapacitated by sick
ness or accident from earning livelihood
Had it not been for the large number OF
secret labor organizations in this country
ponderous wheels, ground the laborins
classes into an intolerable servitude
The men who want the whole eartt
to themselves would have got it be
fore this, had it not been for the
banding together of great secret organlza
tons And, while we deplore many things
| that have been done by them, their existence
is a necessity, ard their legitimate sphere dis
tinctly pointed out by the providence of God
Such organizations are trying to dismiss from
their association all members in favor o
| anarchy and social chaos They will gradu
ally cease anything like tyranny over theiI
members and will forbid violent interference
| with any mans work whether he belongs VI
their union or is outside Of it, and will decars
Their disgust with any such rule as that passed
in England by the Manchester Brickiayers
Association, which says any man found run
ming or working beyond regular speed
shall be fined two shllings and six
pence for the first otfense, five shl
lings for the second, ten shilings for the
third and if still persisting shall be dealt with
as the committee think proper. There are
secret societies in our colleges that have letters
| Of the Greek alphabet for their nomenclature
and their members are Mt the very front il
scholarship and irreproachahls in morals
| while there are others the scene Of carousal
and they gamble, aud they drink
and they graduate knowing hundred
times more about sin than they do Of geoms
try and Sophocles In other words secret SO
cieties, like individuals, are good or bad, arr
tho means Of moral health or at temporal and
eternal damnation All good people recog.
uize the vice of slandering an individual, but
many do not see the sin of slandering an or
ganization.
There are old secret societies In this and
other countries, some OF them centuries old
which have been widely denounced as i'm
moral and damaging in their influence yet
have hundreds of personal friends who belong
TO them, friends who are consecrated Il
God, pillars in the church, faithful
in all relations Of life, examples o